I first tried to solve this by recompiling kernel and hardcoding USB support. This completely broke USB. Then I did what I should have done all along, I knew from looking in the kernel there were two modules, one the "standard" and the other "JE" which seems unpreferred for some reason. I looked around and googled upon how the modules are named, the standard is called "usb-uhci" while the unpreferred JE is just called uhci. I checked in modules.conf and found this line: "probeall usb-interface usb-uhci" and changed it to "probeall usb-interface uhci" rebooted.... and narry a hang since....